Washington.- An emerging coalition that sees Donald Trump’s agenda as a threat to democracy is laying the groundwork to fight back should the former US president win in the November 5 election.
Opponents of the Republican are drafting possible lawsuits in case he carries out mass deportations, as he has promised. Another group hired an auditor to resist any attempt by the tycoon to use the Tax Service against him. And Democratic state governments are even stockpiling abortion drugs.
An extensive network of Democratic officials, progressive activists, watchdog groups and former Republicans have been taking extraordinary measures to prepare for a possible second Trump Presidency, united by fear that the former President’s return would pose a serious threat not only to their agenda, but for American democracy.
“Trump has made clear that he will ignore the law and test the limits of our system,” said Joanna Lydgate, executive director of the United States Democracy Center, a nonpartisan democracy watchdog organization that works with state officials. of both parties.
“What we are seeing is extremely dark.”
While the Supreme Court on Thursday rejected an attempt to overturn federal approval of the abortion pill mifepristone, liberals fear that a new Trump Administration could rescind the endorsement or use a 19th-century morality law to criminalize its shipment across borders. state.
Washington State Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee said he has secured a sufficient supply of mifepristone pills to preserve women in his state’s access to the drug during a Republican second term. The product is kept locked in a state warehouse.
“We physically have it in Washington state, which could prevent him and his anti-abortion forces from banning its distribution,” Inslee said in an interview.
“It has a useful life of five or six years. If there was another Trump Administration, it would get us ahead.”
In any election year there is always discussion of what could happen if the other side wins the White House. Those conversations have typically been limited to Washington chatter and private speculation, as much of the energy has been focused on helping one’s party win elections and developing wish-list political plans.
The volume and scale of planning underway to address a possible second Trump Administration is unprecedented. The loosely united coalition is determined not to be surprised, as many were after its unexpected victory in 2016.
If Trump returns to power, he openly plans to impose radical changes, many with authoritarian overtones, according to experts. Those initiatives include using the Justice Department to exact revenge on its adversaries, sending federal troops to Democratic cities, carrying out mass deportations of migrants, building huge camps to hold undocumented immigrants, making it easier to fire public officials and replace them with “loyalists,” and expand and centralize executive power.
Ian Bassin, executive director of Protect Democracy, said planning on how to resist such an agenda should not be seen as an ordinary political dispute, but as an effort to defend fundamental aspects of American self-government “in the face of a would-be autocrat.”
“He is not a normal candidate, this is not a normal election and these are not normal preparations to simply come out on the wrong side of a national referendum on political options,” Bassin said.
A common tactic to counterattack the first Trump Administration was through litigation that paralyzed its policies in court. Sometimes that work managed to block actions entirely, and in other cases it delayed those policies from taking effect.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), one of the main litigants against the Republican magnate’s first government, plans to take on a similar role if he regains the White House.
ACLU Director Anthony Romero said his group has mapped out 63 scenarios in which a possible return of the mogul could pose a threat to individual rights and the rule of law.
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